Clark & Sullivan awarded school bond work contract

After putting off the decision last week, the Willits school board voted 3 to 1 at Monday's special meeting to award the contract for the next phase of the school bond work to Clark & Sullivan Construction, Inc. out of Reno, Nevada.

Clark & Sullivan's bid, as submitted with an alternate, cheaper roof than was specified, was $4,249,451.

This contract, for new science buildings at Baechtel Grove Middle School and Willits High School, will be the last contract awarded for the first $19 million round of school bond spending. Measure A authorized a total of $43 million in bond sales, and a second set of bonds is anticipated to be sold in 2017.

The other bidder for the work was Sunseri & Associates, Inc, out of Sacramento, where Willits City Councilmember Victor Hanson is a vice-president. Sunseri's bid, as submitted with the original, more expensive roof that was specified, was $4,386,766.

Both bids, as submitted on bid day, September 14, were judged as "incomplete" by facilities director Wayne Bashore. At its September 18 meeting, the school board followed Bashore's recommendation to reject both bids, ask the companies to resubmit a complete bid package by 10 a.m. on Thursday, September 20, and schedule a special board meeting for that evening to consider the bids. However, the original "guaranteed maximum price" submitted by each company had to stand.

Both bids were also higher than the $3,720,000 "best guesstimate" prepared by Bashore and district business manager Katie Aguilar of the monies that would be left for the science building phase of the project after current work is all closed out.

Clark & Sullivan and Sunseri representatives both told the board that, with "value engineering" ideas to lower the cost of the actual construction and with contingency funds that will hopefully remain unspent and returned to the district, they could complete the project within budget despite the high bids. On Monday night, Hanson told board members Sunseri could complete the project "under budget." Clark & Sullivan offered $180,000 in VE ideas, and Sunseri offered $240,000..

Only three board members were present at the Thursday, September 20, evening meeting, with retiring President Robert Kirkpatrick absent, and Trustee Barbara Starr absent on urgent family business. After hearing presentations from both companies, Trustee Saprina Rodriguez suggested she wasn't comfortable making a decision that would have such "a major impact on the community" without more time to look over the new complete bid packages. So a new special meeting was scheduled for Monday night, with only four board members expected to attend, as Kirkpatrick's letter of resignation was effective after September 20's special meeting.

Both companies were awarded contracts to do school bond work this summer. Sunseri has completed all projects at Baechtel Grove Middle School. Clark & Sullivan has just requested another three weeks beyond the October 31 due date to finish the Media Building project at Willits High School

Criteria for selecting the contract, as previously laid out by the school board, included cost, local participation, litigation history, past public schools experience, and value engineering.

In its Thursday presentation, Sunseri's Hanson suggested his company's track record of completing district work on time and early, plus their record of returning unused contingency funds to the district, should be weighed heavily in the trustees' decision. Sunseri's original bid included a 5 percent owner contingency reserve, while Clark & Sullivan's bid included a 2.5 percent owner contingency. Sunseri's presentation on Thursday proposed reducing that 5 percent contingency to 2.5 percent which would save $104,343 on the original bid number.

Although Bashore told the board Thursday he thought both companies had done excellent work, and he could work with either company on the next phase, he recommended the trustees award the contract to Sunseri.

One reason was Sunseri's promise, in the completed bid package, to increase their local participation percentage to 72.8 percent. Clark & Sullivan's local participation percentage in the completed bid package was 63.5 percent.